


Old Friends and New

by lferion



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canon Compliant, Counted Word Fic, Dwarves, Flash Fic, Homecoming, Introspection, Just because they are dead doesn't mean we aren't still friends, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 13:16:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9386900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: Gimli ponders introducing Legolas to Fili and Kili, and them to him.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [morgynleri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/gifts).



> Thanks go to Morgynleri for encouragement & sanity-checking. She gave me the prompt: _Returning home, and Gimli introducing Legolas to Fíli and Kíli as his friend/more-than-friend - can be an everyone lives AU or canon where he's at their tombs._  
>  Written for the effort to get the number of Legolas/Gimli fics on AO3 over the 1k mark.

The Quest complete, Ring destroyed and King crowned, Gimli and Legolas returned to the lands of their people. It was in many ways one land, the northern forest and the Lonely Mountain. Dale, Erebor, the Elvenking's halls all connect in one way or another, all depend more or less on each other. This war of the Ring had not been waged only in the South, as both Legolas and Gimli had feared when they left with the Fellowship, learned some of the cost in the days surrounding Aragorn's coronation. There would be no Dain to greet them with roaring good humor, no Brand. Others would be missed as well.

Oddly, the ones Gimli missed the most had been dead much longer than the few months since the final destruction of the Ring. He had never stopped missing Fili and Kili, though their absence was not the daily wound it once had been. He would have much to tell them when he was home again. He looked up at Legolas striding beside him, long gaze fixed ahead to the gradually emerging shapes of familiar hills and slopes. Their steps went together now, the difference in height and length of leg no longer a hindrance to companionship. Gimli remembered when Kili got his adult height, easily out-pacing the much smaller Gimli (who took after his Firebeard mother in inches, not that Gloin was particularly tall either, especially for a Longbeard and close descendent of Durin), Gimli racing to catch up. It had become a game, like the score-counting-game. There was another thing that had turned out useful, a connection. Though Kili and Legolas both would be no little horrified to be compared. Fili would just throw back his head and laugh. And then sit with Gimli and come up with more points of comparison, waving the end of his pipe to emphasize how red both of their ears were growing. 

Gimli wished they had gotten a chance to know Legolas as he now did. He wished Legolas had had the opportunity to know Fili and Kili as people and not just as prisoners. Well, perhaps he could do a little bit toward the second. Because he did have much to tell his cousins, though they slept deep in the Mountain. He would ask Legolas to come with him there, and tell his own part. Warts and all, as someone once said. 

Now, Gimli knew that Legolas would not laugh at the idea of speaking to the dead as if they could hear. (And really, the tale of the Paths of the Dead was going to be something disconcerting, though there was no comparing the honored dead with the once-dishonored. Take extra light down for that telling.) No, Legolas would not laugh at, though there were parts Gimli hoped (and expected) him to laugh with him. It would be well to bring those two parts of his heart together. Fitting. And funny. And possibly downright silly, but also healing, good for them all.


End file.
